surely this is insane?

Message to All

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Interesting... they say it's like getting free sex? I think this would only encourage pirates to keep on going with their free music and sex.

On a related note, The ACTA laws are just crazy :(
It involves USA, EU and basicly the whole world. It takes away even more of your human rights then what have already been taken. Haven't heard about it? No wonder, because they don't WANT you to know. This is what it says on Wikipedia:

"The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is a proposed plurilateral trade agreement which is alleged by its proponents to be in response "to the increase in global trade of counterfeit goods and pirated copyright protected works." The scope of ACTA is broad, including counterfeit physical goods, as well as "internet distribution and information technology".

That sounds cute, but what does it really mean? Well, this is kinda what it really is:

This new law that is discussed in all secrecy between the G8 countries is about stopping illegal filesharing, but in the physical world. If the law is voted through in the next G8-meeting that will take place in Tokyo next year the 7-9th July this year, the Customs by airports and border controls will start making random search-throughs by travelers laptops, mp3-players and cellphones. ACTA will be created as a stand-alone organization and special ACTA-guards will do these controls. If they find something they deem illegal you will get a fine and get your storage media confiscated or destroyed.

USA, EU, Japan, Schweiz, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Canada and Mexico will be stricken by this madness law which will also create increased cooperation between Internet service provider (ISP) as well as increased limitations in rights to be anonymous on the Internet. ISP's will be forced to report suspected file-sharing crimes, this without permission which makes it MUCH easier to prosecute private individuals and torrent sites.

Requests for disclosure (from wikipedia)

In September 2008 a number of interests groups urged parties to the ACTA negotiations to disclose the language of the evolving agreement. In an open letter the groups argued that: "Because the text of the treaty and relevant discussion documents remain secret, the public has no way of assessing whether and to what extent these and related concerns are merited." The interest groups included: the Consumers Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Essential Action, IP Justice, Knowledge Ecology International, Public Knowledge, Global Trade Watch, the US Public Interest Research Group, IP Left (Korea), the Australian Digital Alliance, the Canadian Library Association, the Consumers Union of Japan, the National Consumer Council (UK) and the Doctors without Borders' Campaign for Essential Medicines.[45]

Canada
The University of Ottawa's Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic filed an access to information request but received only a document stating the title of the agreement, with everything else blacked out.[5]

European Union
In November 2008, FFII requested secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) documents from the EU Council, specifically naming 12 documents to be published.[46] The request was denied by the EU council, stating that "disclosure of this information could impede the proper conduct of the negotiations, would weaken the position of the European Union in these negotiations and might affect relations with the third parties concerned" [47]. FFII stated that although the case could be won in the European court of justice, the legal process could take many years (citing an earlier case on transparency of EU legislation that took 6 years). Consequently, FFII suggests going via parliaments of Europe to force Council to publish the texts.[citation needed]

In March 2009, the European Parliament passed a resolution demanding greater transparency in public affairs, which among other things called on the European Commission to make public all documents relating to the negotiations.[48]

United States
Knowledge Ecology International also filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in the United States but had their entire request denied, with the United State Trade Representative's FOIA office stating it was withheld for being material "properly classified in the interest of national security."[49]

Read more about this crazy law that will take civil rights away from you on wikipedia, but un-biased sites are better and gives you more info, so go Google it.